Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers is an anthology
of essays in which author Arundhati Roy (winner of the 2002 Lannan
Foundation Cultural Freedom Prize) seeks to answer the question “Is
there life after democracy?” More specifically, she examines how Hindu
nationalism and neo-liberal economic reforms in India, which arose
during the early 1990s, are currently transforming India into a police
state. From the deliberate and systematic marginalization of religious
and ethnic minorities, to the increased power of predatory corporations
that engineer the displacement of the poor on a gigantic scale, to the
August 2008 uprising of the people of Kashmir against India’s military
occupation, to a scrutiny of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in
Mumbai, Field Notes on Democracy is sharply critical in its exposure of
the weaknesses and corruption in India’s current model of government. A
thought-provoking read, Field Notes on Democracy warns against the
abuses of wealth and power in India’s current governmental system, and
the threat of impending disaster. Highly recommended.